STMicroelectronics N.V.'s (EPA:STMPA) top owners are individual investors with 39% stake, while 33% is held by institutions

Key Insights

• Significant control over STMicroelectronics by individual investors implies that the general public has more power to influence management and governance-related decisions
• A total of 25 investors have a majority stake in the company with 50% ownership
• Institutions own 33% of STMicroelectronics

If you want to know who really controls STMicroelectronics N.V. (EPA:STMPA), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. And the group that holds the biggest piece of the pie are individual investors with 39% ownership. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.

Meanwhile, institutions make up 33% of the company’s shareholders. Generally speaking, as a company grows, institutions will increase their ownership. Conversely, insiders often decrease their ownership over time.

Let's take a closer look to see what the different types of shareholders can tell us about STMicroelectronics.

View our latest analysis for STMicroelectronics

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About STMicroelectronics?

Institutional investors commonly compare their own returns to the returns of a commonly followed index. So they generally do consider buying larger companies that are included in the relevant benchmark index.

We can see that STMicroelectronics does have institutional investors; and they hold a good portion of the company's stock. This implies the analysts working for those institutions have looked at the stock and they like it. But just like anyone else, they could be wrong. If multiple institutions change their view on a stock at the same time, you could see the share price drop fast. It's therefore worth looking at STMicroelectronics' earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

STMicroelectronics is not owned by hedge funds. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is Stmicroelectronics Holding N.V. with 28% of shares outstanding. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 5.8% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 2.9% by the third-largest shareholder.

A deeper look at our ownership data shows that the top 25 shareholders collectively hold less than half of the register, suggesting a large group of small holders where no single shareholder has a majority.

Researching institutional ownership is a good way to gauge and filter a stock's expected performance. The same can be achieved by studying analyst sentiments. There are plenty of analysts covering the stock, so it might be worth seeing what they are forecasting, too.

Insider Ownership Of STMicroelectronics

The definition of an insider can differ slightly between different countries, but members of the board of directors always count. Company management run the business, but the CEO will answer to the board, even if he or she is a member of it.

I generally consider insider ownership to be a good thing. However, on some occasions it makes it more difficult for other shareholders to hold the board accountable for decisions.

Our data suggests that insiders own under 1% of STMicroelectronics N.V. in their own names. However, it's possible that insiders might have an indirect interest through a more complex structure. It is a very large company, so it would be surprising to see insiders own a large proportion of the company. Though their holding amounts to less than 1%, we can see that board members collectively own €1.7m worth of shares (at current prices). In this sort of situation, it can be more interesting to see if those insiders have been buying or selling.

General Public Ownership

The general public, who are usually individual investors, hold a 39% stake in STMicroelectronics. While this group can't necessarily call the shots, it can certainly have a real influence on how the company is run.

Private Company Ownership

We can see that Private Companies own 28%, of the shares on issue. It might be worth looking deeper into this. If related parties, such as insiders, have an interest in one of these private companies, that should be disclosed in the annual report. Private companies may also have a strategic interest in the company.

Next Steps:

I find it very interesting to look at who exactly owns a company. But to truly gain insight, we need to consider other information, too. To that end, you should be aware of the 1 warning sign we've spotted with STMicroelectronics .

If you would prefer discover what analysts are predicting in terms of future growth, do not miss this free report on analyst forecasts.

NB: Figures in this article are calculated using data from the last twelve months, which refer to the 12-month period ending on the last date of the month the financial statement is dated. This may not be consistent with full year annual report figures.

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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.